Grim Falls
by kajedhorrors
Summary: (god that title) Mandy is cold and lonely. So is Dipper. Mandy releases Grim from his contract and moves to Gravity Falls. But when Grim follows her, everyone seems to want something from him, except for Mandy.
1. Aren't You Lonely Too?

Grim Falls Ch. 1 "Aren't you lonely too?"

The night was very cold. Dipper Pines was very cold. The metal bleachers that Dipper Pines sat on were very cold. These coldnesses were related. Dipper straightened his hat and his posture, then thrust his hands into the pockets of his dark blue polyester jacket. He felt his journal pressed against his chest beneath his winter coat. He ignored it and turned his attention back to the football game.

Dipper was sure football was a bigger deal down south, but Gravity Falls still took pride in their local teams. This is despite the fact that the Gravity Falls Gremloblins were often, and currently, on the losing side. Dipper didn't really wonder about their losing record, he just wondered how Gremloblins were accepted as the mascot, and why even the more skeptical residents of Gravity Falls and the neighboring towns didn't ever question is. He enjoyed the game despite the cold and the pressing questions. It was helped by the fact that Dipper liked the game more than he liked either team specifically.

He scanned the crowd, enjoying watching the people as much as he enjoyed watching the game. Immediately, he spotted Mabel and her two foam hands. She jumped up and down happily while Candy and Grenda sat next to her cheering in a slightly more subdued fashion. They were all smiling, and they were all clad in green and orange sweaters that mabel had knitted; with the words 'Go Gremloblins" stitched on to them. Dipper smiled too.

The Gremloblins scored a touchdown. Dipper turned his head to the side when he heard a loud shouting from a little ways away. Wendy and her friends stood some ways away, none of them hollering louder than Wendy herself. Dipper felt a warmth in his cheeks as he found himself staring at Wendy's bright red hair.

Dipper was a freshman and only just now sixteen. Wendy would be graduating this year. The age difference became less apparent as Dipper grew older, but perhaps it was the fact that she had known him as a kid that led her to treat him as one of her little brothers, even now. She had always known how he felt. She really would have to be incredibly dense not to see the effect she had on him. She had a long and serious conversation with him when he turned fourteen. His chest ached whenever he thought of the talk they'd had.

He shook his head and scanned the crowd again. His eyes skipped over mabel and he looked to his left. Dipper tapped his feet on the bleachers as he looked for familiar faces. He almost had to turn his head all the way around, but he saw the more sullen members of the class sitting in the uppermost corner of the stands. He saw Robbie and his band sitting at the center of the cluster of hooded teens. Robbie himself nodded in acknowledgement at Dipper's gaze. Dipper almost ducked his head back down out of pure instinct, but he nodded back to Robbie instead. Their relationship still couldn't really be considered friendship, but it had grown far less hostile since Robbie, Wendy, and Dipper had _all _had several conversations with eachother about the volatile state of their interactions. Dipper liked to think they had come to an understanding, but perhaps it wasn't his imagination that their conversations were always... tense.

Dipper leaned back slightly, being sure not to fall over backwards. He breathed in the crisp night air and watched the football game for a while more. It would be over before too long, and perhaps the Gremloblins could scrape a win out of the night after all. Dipper caught sight of Pacifica Northwest amongst the cheerleaders, crinkling his nose in slight disgust. Though it was by far the _least _of her crimes, Dipper couldn't help but scowl at the knowledge that her family was the only reason the freshman was allowed to be a cheerleader in the first place.

Dipper shivered against the cold and resumed people watching. He caught sight of a few blood pact scouts lurking amongst the crowd and considered pulling out his journal to check their weaknesses again, but decided to let them go on their way until they started doing anything overtly hostile. He spotted someone who was almost certainly either a zombie or a stack of gnomes (he still had trouble telling the two apart) and he decided to keep an eye on them. The bleachers were packed with people both natural and supernatural and while he didn't know nearly all the names, he knew almost all of the faces.

A face he didn't know stood out to him. Despite the crowding that caused him to be sandwiched between a large man who kept dropping his pizza onto the ground and a family with an oddly familiar set of younger twins, somehow there was still a gap in the crowd. A lone girl in a black hoodie sat in the seat closest to the stairs that led to the parking lot. The rest of the crowd seemed to have parted around her. She was shivering pretty badly, and she leaned over against the chain link fence at the adge of the bleachers. Dipper frowned and looked down at his jacket. He nudged the man next to him, causing the pizza to slilp from his fingers. Dipper winced. "Sorry, man." He then indicated his desire to get out and the man scooted backwards as best he could, a disappointed expression on his face. Dipper patted the guy on the shoulder as he stepped out onto the stairs.

Dipper weaved around people returning from the snack bar and went down the steps. He got about halfway to his goal before he was waylaid. A strong arm grabbed a hold of him and dragged him into the crowd. Dipper felt a surge of panic until he saw mabel come into view. Grenda put him down between her and Mabel and Dipper dusted his jeans off. Mabel's shrieking rose over the sounds of the crowd and the game. "Isn't this game exciting?" she asked. "Yeah, Mabel, it's pretty great," Dipper looked back impatiently, "pretty bad start, but I guess we're pulling ahead now." As if in defiance, the visitor side roared in applause as their team completed a pass and made it to the endzone. "Aw, man..." Mabel groaned. The rest of the crowd groaned too. "Oh." Dipper said. "well." Mabel's shoulders sagged, and she waved her foam fingers half-heartedly. Dipper gave her a half-hug. "Don't worry. We'll score again." Dipper promised. The three girls smiled back at him. Dipper straightened his hat and jabbed his thumb back in the direction he had come from. "I'm gonna... ya' know." he said. Mabel nodded, "Later Smile Dip!" Dipper lowered his eyebrows and frowned at her. He shook his head as she flashed a straight toothed smile.

Dipper crept back to the steps, his way significantly more difficult now that he didn't have Grenda to part the crowd. When he finally emerged, he threw a look back at Mabel and her friends, and they waved at him. He resumed smiling and made his way to the bottom row. He rubbed his hands together and began to unzip his coat. He waggled his fingers and plunged his hand into the inside of his jacket, retrieving a red leather book with a golden hand and a black number four painted on its cover. Dipper rustled the pages and skimmed his writing. He tucked the book under his arm and crossed in front of the crowd to make his way to the solitary girl in the corner. She shivered again in the cold weather. Dipper studied the crowd around her. They didn't seem scared, and yet they seemed completely unaware of the empty space around them.

Dipper slid into a spot next to the girl and immediately felt a profound sense of terror, and a pressure on his ears. He gritted his teeth and the feeling intensified briefly, then subsided entirely as he focused. The girl snapped her head around towards him. Now that he saw he up close, he could see her more clearly. She was short, not overly, but definitely not as tall as he was. She wasn't skinny, not fat, but definitely not as slim as Dipper. Her hair was blonde and cropped close to her head. Her eyes were a deep brown that Dipper couldn't be sure wasn't black. Her black hooded sweatshirt was a bit too big for her, and it was worn and faded in some places. Her hands were wrapped in fingerless gloves and clasped around an Ipod, with large headphones leading from the mp3 player to her hood. Her expression was dark, and cold, and angry, and sad. Dipper raised her eyebrows at her. Her look turned to confusion and she frowned and flicked her eyes from the mp3 player to Dipper, then back again. She lifted delicate unpainted fingers to her hood and slid the headphones down onto her neck.

She looked at Dipper expectantly. "Hey." he said with a smile. he sat 4 down onto the seat beside him and shrugged his coat off. He wore a dark red button-down shirt with long sleeves, and soon it was all that sheltered him from the cold. He reached out his hands and offered her the thick coat. She just became more confused. She scowled at him. "Why?" she snapped. "You look cold." he explained. "And lonely." her expression softened. she reached a hand out and gently tugged on the coat. He released it into her grasp. The girl shivered one last time and threw it on. She zipped it up and sighed. Dipper smiled at her. His smile was met with another suspicious scowl. "Won't... you be cold?" she asked, though he suspected she didn't actually care. "Nope." he answered. "My dad moved me here when I was twelve." he elaborated, "I'm used to this weather." The girl turned her gaze back forwards and was silent.

Dipper tapped his foot on the bleacher and the girl did too. They each stopped when they noticed the other's rhythm, then sat in what would have been an awkward silence if only they were alone. Dipper cleared his throat. She snapped her head back towards him and glared. Dipper lowerd his eyebrows and smiled a 'really?' smile at her. She scoffed and crossed her arms. He extended a cold hand towards her, "I'm Dipper Pines." The girl looked at the hand for a long, long moment. She sighed and slumped her shoulders slightly, shaking her head. She slipped a hand into his own. "Amanda Claire." she grumbled. "So I can call you Amanda?" Dipper asked. "Mandy." she snapped. "**Nobody** calls me Amanda." Dipper cocked his head. "Fair enough. I don't use my real name either." She lowered her dark eybrows,"Obviously not, _Dipper_." Dipper shrugged and put his hands into the pockets of his jeans to keep them warm. Mandy looked down at his pockets and unconciously fiddled with the arm of the jacket she had loaned him. "Are... are you sure you're won't be cold..." Her voice was softer than the first time she asked. He waved his hand in dismissal, then quickly put it back where it was had been, so as not to make himself a liar.

"I was." she admits. "Cold I mean. And..." she whispers, "Lonely." Dipper gave her a sad smile. Mandy bit her lip, then opened her mouth to speak, "Dipper, have you..." she trailed off. "Yeah?" Dipper urged. "Have you ever lost someone." her dark eyes were suddenly damp and she turned them to look straight into Dipper's. "And then you just run, and run and you just can't forget and just..." Dipper looked at her with a sadder smile. Her eyes became angry. "No. I guess not." she concluded. "My mom." Dipper said, and she snapped her head towards him. "That's why I moved here. My Dad couldn't stand to be in our house any more after she..." Dipper cleared his throat. "He took us back here so he could be near other family and try to forget." She stared at him for a long time with a suspicious expression. Then she asked a question that kind of caught Dipper off guard. "Is this a good place to forget?" she said. Dipper paused for a while and watched the football game before answering. "Yeah. I guess it is."

Suddenly, Mandy leaned her head against Dipper's shoulder and he froze stiffer than if he had stayed out here all night. "Wha..." Dipper said, baffled. She looked up at him with her large black eyes. "I said I was lonely." Mandy says. "Aren't you lonely too?"


	2. Can We Stay Here?

Grim Falls Ch. 2"Can We Stay Here?"

Dipper pines sat in silent discomfort. It was not physical discomfort, _definitely not _he thought. It was a sort of vague emotional, perhaps even moral sense of wrongness that he couldn't push from his mind. He wasn't sure that _either _of them were in the right, Mandy pushing all of this off on him (though she hadn't said very much that was personal or concrete), and Dipper just sitting here while this girl snuggled against him (which he tried not to enjoy _too _much). They hadn't exchanged many words since she had laid her head on his shoulder, and he didn't really think the ones that _had_ been said were enough. Dipper pondered higher thoughts of morality in an attempt to distract himself from the building realization that he could feel Mandy's hair on his cheek once she set her head on his shoulder and that the hair in question was really soft and smelled really good. _Way to be wierd, Dipper _he chided himself, struggling not to disturb mandy by slapping himself in the face.

Mandy sat in silence now, though he could see and feel her breath. Dipper considered wrapping his arm around her, but he couldn't stop thinking that it wasn't something he deserved to do. The only way they had even ended up in this situation was personal tragedy, and Dipper was sure that benefitting from that tragedy _definitely _wouldn't be right. She had made no attempt to embrace him either, but it was enough that she shifted her head occasionally and pressed closer to him, as if even with _both _of their jackets she was _still _cold. Dipper gulped and drummed his fingers against his knees. His eyes darted down to his journal, as they often did in times of stress. And he concluded that while girls were mysterious creatures, there probably wouldn't be anything to help him in the book.

The game was in the fourth quarter, and as the clock ticked downwards, Dipper dreaded when it would run out and he'd have to remove Mandy from his shoulder. He dreaded more that he wouldn't have to. That when the game drew to a close, Mandy would stand up, dust herself off, and walk away to someplace Dipper would never see her again. He blew air out his nostrils and tried to stay calm and focused. Mandy stirred and turned her dark eyes up towards his again, as if expecting him to say something. Dipper found himself meeting her expectations, "Did you um..." dipper stumbled over his words, "Do you live here now?" She nodded, her silky blonde hair rubbing against his cheek again. "So I'll... see you in school, right?" She stiffened slightly, and he was afraid that she was going to sit up already, but she just nodded and put her weight back on his shoulder. He sighed in a strange relief.

The Gremloblins zipped back and forth across the field, and Dipper found himself unable to even follow the game. He kept glancing at the clock, and at Mandy's downcast eyes. Dipper used the arm that wasn't pinned by Mandy to scrach his head and readjust his had in a nervous gesture. Though it had abated for quite a while, he was struck again with that agonizing terror and felt burning eyes bore into him. His head turned to the side, and he spotted a pair of figures standing next to the field on the visitors side. He wasn't sure that they were supposed to be down there. One of them was a boy, around his age and his height. His hair was messy and red and topped with a baseball cap. The boy seemed familiar to Dipper, though perhaps it was just that they were dressed similarly. The boy seemed wrong in a way that only things in gravity falls can seem wrong. His colors were washed out, and though Dipper could clearly see his features, the boy seemed hazy and hard to make out. The other figure seemed impossibly tall. Its features were obscured by the hood of a long black robe. The hooded figure held a long and sharp scythe. The boy waved to Dipper, and Mandy stirred. Dipper looked back down to the girl on his shoulder, but she didn't seem to have noticed the feeling, or the figures. When he returned his gaze to the field, the pair were gone.

Dipper threw book number four a searching look and considered flipping through the pages with his free hand, but even that seemed like too much of a risk with Mandy so close. The Gremloblins had a stroke of luck as the clock ticked down to zero. After a long and pointless time out, the team went aggressive, pushing past the visiting team and down to the endzone. Everyone but Dipper and Mandy jumped to their feet and shouted as the last touchdown was scored. He could hear Mabel and Wendy over the rest of the crowd, and he smiled. Mandy placed a hand on his back and sat up straight. She looked back at Dipper and now he smiled at her. Dipper looked down at Mandy and she frowned at him. Dipper felt a small surge of panic, but he supposed that Mandy just didn't ever smile. Her fingers were light on his shoulder, then absent. She crossed her hands in her lap and looked down again. "Thank you for that." she grumbled. "I've been..." she closed her eyes and sighed. "Tired. I'm glad I found -someone- who's willing to just let me sit still and breathe for a bit." Dipper nodded, silently glad now that he hadn't said anything to alleviate the silence he had felt was so awkward.

Mabel leapt through the crowd and bounced over to Dipper, waving her fingers in the air. "Oh my gosh, did you see that?" Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but Mabel cut him off. "It was like, eh, and then it was like, aw, but then it was like, WOOOOAAAAH!" she said coherently. Dipper nodded in understanding, which would have been feigned understanding if she had said that sentence to anything other than her twin brother. Mabel stopped jumping and her eyes widened slightly. She leaned forwards and looked at Mandy, still sitting awfully close and wearing Dipper's jacket. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She seemed to think for a split second. "Hey," she started with a grin, "I'm gonna hitch a ride with Candy alright?" Dipper furrowed his brow and then got it. "Oh, oh yeah! right. cool." he stuttered. "I'm gonna..." Dipper flicked his gaze towards mandy and continued, "I'll be back later." "MMhm." Mabel affirmed. She then winked at Dipper and skipped back up the bleachers, nearly running over a blood pact scout, who hissed at her in protest. "Who was that?" Mandy said, there was an edge to her voice, a sort of pessimistic caution. "That's Mabel. My twin sister. She's pretty great." Dipper assured her. Mandy's shoulders went slack in something Dipper realized was relief. "Oh, no. Right. I should have seen the resemblance." She said. Dipper smiled at her. She continued to not return this gesture.

As people filtered out of the stadium, Mandy and Dipper became increasingly alone. He ran a hand across the cover of his book and looked at Mandy. She had made no move to leave. "So hey um... you want a ride home?" Her expression was cold. Dipper flinched slightly, leaving a small gap between them. "It's just... I've got a car, and Mabel got a ride home, and I just didn't wanna leave you alone and if not it's just whatever, y'know?" Dipper babbled. Mandy glared at him. "I'd rather not go home just yet. There's not exactly a lot for me there." Dipper had a puzzled expression. "Parents?" he ventured. "I have better conversations with my dog." she grumbled. "Well then let's just get in the car. I can drive you wherever. Maybe get you something to eat?" Mandy looked suspicious again, then looked down and furrowed her eyebrows. "Whatever makes you happy." Dipper wasn't sure how to respond to that. He settled for straightening his hat and tucking the journal under his arm. He pulled himelf to his feet and turned around to face her. She looked up at him with a flat expression. He held his hand out towards her and she frowned again. _Was that the wrong thing to do?_ Dipper worried. His hand receded a bit, until both of her hands shot out and clasped his tightly. She pulled herself to his feet, using him for stability. She let go as soon as she was standing.

Dipper gestured for her to go ahead of him and she kept on frowning. "While I respect that you know your place," she said sarcastically, "I don't exactly know where you parked." Dipper felt the need to slap himself again. "Ah, right, right." he said hurriedly. "I'll just. Um..." he cleared his throat and set a brisk pace down the ramp towards the parking lot. It was a large expanse of gravel with only a few dozen cars left. Dipper walked up to an old green car and reached for the keys in his coat pocket. Mandy stepped up behind him and he turned around to face her. "What?" she snapped. Dipper shrunk back. "The um, keys are in my jacket." Mandy raised her eyebrows and looke guilty. She felt for the zipper and Dipper grabbed her hand to stop her. "I'ts fine." he assured her. "Keep it for a little while longer, I just need the keys." Mandy looked down and nodded, digging her hands into the pockets of the blue jacket and then handing over a pair of keys on a ring with a Mystery Shack keychain. Dipper unlocked the car and opened his door. Mandy stepped around, pulled open the passenger side and slid into the seat. Dipper did the same. They buckled their seatbelts with simealtaneous clicks.

Dipper fit the key into the ignition and pulled forwards. The gravel crunched under his tires as he pulled away from the parking lot. Mandy spoke up, "Do you happen to know somewhere we can hang out?" Dipper pulled up to a stop sign and pondered her question. "There's an abandoned convenience store a couple blocks away..." he drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "But they aren't really a fan of teenagers over there." "They?" she asked. Dipper didn't answer her question, he just kept thinking aloud. "We could park..." Dipper's face lit up. "In the empty lot behind the water tower!" he said excitedly. "It's pretty trashed, but you can see the whole town from up there!" Mandy frowned and shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy." She repeated.

Dipper turned down a side street that sloped upwards into the woods. He frowned and raised his eyebrows. "Doesn't anything make _you_ happy?" Mandy scowled at him with even more venom than when he'd just met her. Dipper caught her expression out of the corner of his eye and mirrored it. Mandy held the face for several seconds before crossing her arms across her chest and leaning her head against the window. Dipper sighed and ran a hand through his bangs. He shook his head as the car's headlights illuminated the emptiness of the vacant vacant lot. The hi-beams flashed across a mountain of empty crates and oil drums, several dead trees, the half smashed wall with muffins spray painted all over it, and finally the water tower. Which stood as tall as the nearby pine trees. Dipper smiled again. "Here we are," he said. Mandy grunted and undid her seatbelt as he pulled the car to a stop.

She popped the car door open and stepped quickly out into the cold dark night. "Wait, Mandy!" Dipper protested, but she kept up her pace and made her way to the water tower. Dipper climbed over the console and tumbled out the passenger side door after her, limbs splayed awkwardly. He pulled himself to his feet and brused off his pants as he stumbled around in the near darkness, the lot only illuminated by the headlights of his car. He came up to Mandy just as she climbed the first rung of the rusted steel ladder that led up the water tower. "Where are you doing?" Dipper demanded. "I'm going to go see the town." her expression was neutral, and the headlights reflected in her dark eyes with a haunting shimmer. She began climbing the rungs one at a time and started scaling the tower. Dipper huffed and scurried up after her. _Don't look down, _he recited, although heights were not actually amongst his many fears. He turned his gaze up the ladder, and nearly fell to his death. He blushed as mandy continued to climb the tower above him, and he ducked his head and made a quiet squeaking noise. _Only look down, _Dipper commanded himself.

When dipper reached the top of the ladder, Mandy's fingers wrapped around his hand and hoisted it up with more strength than he would have thought possible from the girl who had laid her head so lightly on his shoulder. He shivered and felt an aching in his chest, but he assured himself that this was the cold and the altitude respectively. Mandy pulled him over to the railing on the side of the tower that faced Gravity falls. Most of the houses were dark, but some of the businesses and all of the street lights bathed the town in orange light. The sounds of wildlife and the distant waterfall echoed endlessly through the valley. The wind was strong and cold, and Mandy pressed against dipper's side again. Dipper took a sharp breath and then sighed. His eyes traced the familiar streets of gravity falls. Mandy released his hand and unzipped his jacket. Dipper gave her a puzzled look as she slipped the coat off and draped it over his shoulders. He slipped his arms into the coat and Mandy stepped between him and the railing. She shivered, then reached back and snagged his arms. She pulled Dipper's arms around her and sighed deeply. Dipper swallowed and took a deep breath. She pulled her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie and he kept his arms wrapped around her shoulders. He squeezed her tightly, and it seemed to be what she wanted him to do.

Mandy rolled her head back onto his shoulder and turned to look at him. Dipper felt her warm breath on his cheek. "I don't know you Mandy," Dipper whispered. She looked at him. He continued, "But I _do_ want you to be happy." Tears welled at the edges of Mandy's eyes. "I..." she trembles, "Can we stay here? Like this?" she pleaded quietly. "Only for a little while." she whispered. Dipper smiled down at her and held her close. She sobbed quietly and felt a little bit better.


	3. What Are You Doing In My Room?

Grim Falls Ch. 3 "What are you doing in my room?"

Billy stood on the gravel surface of the parking lot and watched Dipper's car turn out into the road and disappear. The grim reaper glided silently to Billy's side, but Billy knew he was there.

"Good game, right?" Billy offered.

Grim's skull scowled back at him. "I wasn't watchin' the game, stupid." Grim said as he jabbed Billy in the back of the head with the end of his scythe.

Billy rubbed the back of his head and straightened his baseball cap. He smiled, "No?"

"No," Grim intoned, "We're here ta' keep an eye on Mandy." He looked down at Billy expecting him to acknowledge this fact.

Instead, Billy just responded with, "Why?"

Grim slapped his forehead with a hollow 'thunk.' "And she calls _me _bonehead." Grim grumbled.

Billy was silent for a few moments, wearing a confused smile on his face.

"We're makin' sure she don't do anyting stupid," Grim groaned.

Billy shook his head. "No, no, Mandy doesn't _do_ stupid things."

Grim scowled at the boy. "Maybe she didn't before, but now?"

Billy looks down with a strange expression."Grim?" he asked.

"What?" grim answered.

"Why can't she see me?" Billy asked.

"She don't want to. And you ain't old enough." Grim answered.

"Huh?" Billy asked.

"Look," grim sighed, "Spirits don't usually get enough power to manifest until they been dead a good long while. Especially not if they died slowly." he explained.

Billy screwed up his face, "And what about... her not wanting to?" he asked.

"Well Billy," Grim said slowly, "I tink she was angry at the both of us for what happened. I don't think she's in the mood to talk to either of us."

Billy pondered this. "I guess not." he concluded.

Grim put a skeletal hand within his own cloak and rummaged around, muttering to himself. Billy spoke up again.

"Grim?" he asked once more.

Grim stopped rummaging, "What?" he snapped.

Billy looked up at him, "Why didn't I move on?"

Grim's expression turns to one of guilt. "Do you really want to?" Grim asked hesitantly.

Billy shook his head slowly, "Not while Mandy's still mad at me."

Grim looked a bit relieved. "She was _always_ mad at you." the reaper protests.

Billy shook his head again. "Not like this."

Grim nodded in agreement. "I suppose not." He finally found what he had been looking for, and fished crumpled brochure from the recesses of his dark cloak. He thrust it into Billy's Hands.

"Ooh, what's that?" Billy studied the brochure intently.

"It's where the boy lives." Grim explained.

Billy just looked confused again. "What boy?"

Grim ground his teeth together. "The one Mandy took off with!"

Billy cocked his head. "Oh."

Grim rolled his eyes sockets. "Do I _really _need to explain _this one_ to you?" Grim asked.

Billy treated him to a rare scowl. "No, I get it. I just don't get why _you_ care."

Grim sputtered at the statement. "You should care too!" Grim snaps, "She's outta her mind with grief and now she's runnin' of into the woods with some teenager!"

Billy chuckled. "I think she can take him."

Grim's eyes caught fire. "Dat's not the point!"

Billy sighed. "You want me to follow her?"

"No." grim insisted. "You just follow the map on dat brochure and hide out in the kid's house in case I lose track a' dem."

Billy shrugged and floated into the air, emitting a soft blue light. "Have fun with your stalking." Billy waves and leaves Grim alone in the empty lot.

The boy flew away from the sound of the shouting reaper and relished the felling as the wind goes _literally_ through his hair. He smiled and looked down at the forest below. The trees soon gave way to streets and houses, which the boy compared with the diagram on the back of the Mystery Shack brochure. It took him quite a while, as he wasn't quite sure which direction was north, or even that north _was _a direction. The wind carried his incorporeal form through the night sky and finally towards the Mystery Shack.

He flew in circles, slowing his descent (which wasn't really necessary, but _was_ really fun) and glided down to sit on the peak of the mystery shack roof. He looks at the surrounding area and takes in the scenery. He sees a few lawn chairs on the roof below him, and he floats down into one of them. He sighs as he reclines on the chair, staring out past the totem pole and into the forest. Billy would have become lost in thought, but he didn't really have enough thoughts to get lost in. He eventually became bored, and sank down through the chair and into the Shack.

Three men sat at a card table in a darkened gift shop. Billy studied them each in turn. The oldest was a man in a stained wife beater and a pair of striped boxers. His chin was crusted with gray stubble and he wore a fez over a pair of thick glasses. The Largest was a man in an enormous green question mark t-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. His crooked teeth stick out over his lip when he smiled, and he referred to both of the others as 'Mr. Pines'. The final man at the card table was tall and thin. His hair was brown and curly, and his glasses are almost as thick as the old man's. He wore a goatee, and his eyes were wide and hollow.

"Don't change the subject, Uncle Stan. do you think we're just not gonna discuss your two aces of spades?" the third man said, in a tone that Billy realized was only _jokingly_ furious.

"Just lucky I guess." the older man replied, though even Billy knew enough not to believe _that._

"It might be true, ya' know." the larger man defended, "I think if Mr. Pines weren't so lucky, he'd have had to close down the shack a long time ago."

The thin man shook his head, "Soos, the only reason the shack hasn't closed down yet is because you let my uncle work you so hard."

The larger man chuckled, "If you say so, Mr. Pines."

The older man cleared his throat, "We gonna play or what?"

"Only if you stop cheating." insisted the thinner man.

"It's force of habit." The older man insisted in return. "If I don't cheat, your daughter'll take every last cent."

Billy wasn't really able to follow the thread of the conversation. He floated so that he was mere inches behind the thin man. The man shivered, but didn't look back. The man coughed and slipped a card out of his sleeve. Billy smirked and shook his head. He set his feet down on the oaken floorboards, though he could never really touch them, and strolled towards the stairs. Billy grabbed the banister and hopped onto it. He grinned and floated upwards, pretending to slide the wrong way along the banister. He floated off the railing and came to a door with a hand-written sign that read "Mabel and Dipper's room, and underneath that, "party zone."

Billy waved his hand and the doorknob rotated swiftly. The door drifted open with a quiet creaking noise. The ghost floated through the gap, though that was not strictly necessary. He turned around in a circle, surveying the twins' bedroom. The beds would have been identical, but for the belongings piled on them. The bed to Billy's right was covered in blankets and yarn and various knitted articles of clothing. The one on the left was covered in papers and books. There was a fair amount of dirty laundry on the left side of the room, and a fair few posters on the right. The posters and the clothes were both exploding out of their sides of the room and into the other. Regardless of which half of the room you looked at, you would always find strange and supernatural knickknacks.

Billy sighed and floated over to the yarn covered bed. He settled into the pile, though he only pretended to rest on top of it. He closed his eyes and got comfortable. He would have scratched his nose, or readjusted himself, but neither of those was necessary. As a ghost, Billy could feel no discomfort. He sighed again and began staring at the ceiling. He hummed loudly for a few minutes, and no one told him to stop. He was bored again.

Just as Billy rose into the air again, he heard the sound of a car door closing. Billy glided over to the window and looked out at the car in the parking lot. A teenager climbed out of the car. It wasn't Mandy, or the boy she was with, it was someone else. She was a tall girl with long, wavy, brown hair and a wide grin. She wore a green and orange sweater and a pair of patched blue jeans. Billy floated away from the glass, only vaguely interested. He would have floated down to get a better look at her, but he felt he needed to stay where he could keep watch for Mandy.

Billy floated upright in the center of the room, looking around and trying to find something to keep him occupied. He heard a fourth voice added to the conversation downstairs, and Billy could control himself no longer. He floated towards the gap in the door and got ready to eavesdrop when he caught a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye. Shininess holding more interest to him than conversation, Billy flew quickly over to the closet where he had seen the flash. On the closet floor, wrapped in an old hooded sweatshirt, there was a tied bundle of three old leather books.

Billy wouldn't have been interested, but he felt a presence within them as he felt when Grim was nearby. _These books are powerful_, he thought, _and important_. Billy extended his hand toward the bundle and the brown cord untied itself skillfully. The first book was marked with a golden six-fingered hand and a painted number three. Billy floated the book up into his hands and retreated into the center of the room. His eyes glowed with a bright blue light as the pages flipped rapidly in a phantom wind. They stopped at a page about ghosts. Billy leaned his head forwards and read the page over his nose.

_Through careful study and secretive research, _it read, _I have determined several facts about ghosts. Their power is directly related to the length of their time as a spirit. Their ability to lift and manipulate objects starts within human limits and increases rapidly over the next several decades. They become able to influence the minds of the living and to consume the energy of other spectral organisms, thereby increasing their power further. _Billy paused. He wondered genuinely what kind of ghost would eat another just to become a better poltergeist. He shook his head and continued reading. _A ghost is bound to this world by its own willpower. The deceased ultimately makes the decision for itself as to what exactly their unfinished business is and when and if it is ever finished. Unlike in literature and classical ghost stories, the ghost is wholly in control of whether or not it moves on from this world. _Billy stopped reading again. He hadn't known that. Did that mean he could move on if he really wanted to? He flicked his eyes down the page and read another line. _There are a few exceptions, as the ghosts of the mentally ill aren't always aware enough to control this process. _Billy frowned. Mentally ill?

_ The rarest and most powerful exception to the rule is the power of a death master. Powerful human sorcerers can control the shades of the departed, and it is the innate ability of creatures such as Demons (See page 49), certain Faeries (See pages 67, 108), and gods of death such as Reapers (See page 275) to prevent or even __**reverse**__ the passage of a ghost from this world. _Billy was about to turn to page 275 to see exactly what the book had to say about Grim when he heard the stairs creaking in the hallway.

Billy hissed and looked down at the book. He slammed it shut with a thought and sent it zipping through the air to land on its brothers. Billy focused on the string and it tied itself back together. He slid the sweatshirt back onto the stack just as the door began to open. He rose rapidly towards the rafters. He hung there in silent stillness as the girl stepped through the threshold.

The girl smiled widely and hummed a happy song as she shut the door behind her. She walked over to her bed, undoing her earrings and placing them on the night stand. She pulled her Gravity Falsl Gremloblins sweater off over her head, revealing the Gravity Falls Gremloblins t-shirt underneath it.. She tossed the sweater onto the pile on her bed and let out a loud sigh. She made a small jump into the air and flopped backwards onto her bed.

She lay there quietly for about a minute, staring at the ceiling. Her expression grew perplexed as she studied the rafters. Billy held his breath, though he had none, and tried to remind himself that she couldn't see him.

"Hey." She said, looking straight at the empty patch of ceiling where Billy floated, supposedly invisibly.

Billy blinked. "Um... Hi?" he said, not sure she would even hear him.

"What's your name?" she asked with a tired smile.

"Um... Billy?" he said, still not convinced she was actually talking to him.

"That's cool. I'm Mabel." She said.

"Okay." Billy said, shifting his eyes from side to side.

"So..." she started, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"What are you doing in my room?" she asked.

"Oh. Um..." Billy was at a loss for words.

[A/N Hey there you guys! It's the guy who wrote this fic! I've been meaning to stick author's notes on most of these chapters, and I just sort of... didn't. Oh well. I'm just writing here to say that I actually wrote this chapter sometime last month. I thought I uploaded it before now. I didn't though. Well that's pretty much it. I'm not too much a fan of this chapter, but in fanfiction you can't have too much shame.]


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